Alison Yin / EdSource

Alison Yin / EdSource

In a move that could result in more federal fiscal assistance for prospective teachers, the California Department of Didactics has identified a teacher shortage in almost every discipline area in the state, including for the starting time fourth dimension physical education, health and trip the light fantastic.

Each year California is required to tell the U.S. Section of Didactics in what subject areas teacher shortages exist, based on a formula established by the federal government, which and then publishes a nationwide list of shortage areas.  The list carries significant weight because prospective teachers who agree to teach subjects that announced on the list tin can qualify for federal grants that comprehend a portion of their higher tuition costs, or for forgiveness of some or all of certain federal student loans. California'south list now covers almost subject areas in the state.

In a letter to the U.S. Section of Education terminal month, the state listed all the areas in which shortages be. In addition to physical educational activity, they include uncomplicated education, mathematics and computer teaching; English language, drama and humanities; history and social sciences; scientific discipline; and special instruction. According to the letter, uncomplicated teachers are at present the highest priority for the state.

In a niggling noticed stride earlier this year, based on information received from California, the federal government had already declared a shortage of simple schoolhouse teachers in California.

The federal regime defines a teacher shortage as "an area of specific grade, subject affair or discipline nomenclature, or a geographic area in which the Secretary of Education determines that there is an inadequate supply of uncomplicated or secondary schoolhouse teachers."

This was the commencement time unproblematic schoolhouse teachers were placed on the list since the federal government began publishing it a quarter of a century agone. About half of the 295,000 teachers in California are uncomplicated schoolhouse teachers. California is simply ane of a handful of states reporting a shortage of elementary school teachers.Others include Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Virginia, W Virgina and Wyoming. New United mexican states has declared a shortage of kindergarten teachers.

One reason the elementary school shortage may not have received more attention is that the federal list describes an unproblematic schoolhouse grade as a "self-contained class," which is the official terminology used in California for most Thousand-five classrooms.

California education officials are hoping that having more subject area areas on the list, including elementary instruction, could assist attract new teachers to the profession by making federal aid more bachelor to them.

Joan Bissell, managing director of Pedagogy and Public Schoolhouse programs for the California State Academy system, said the daunting prospect of having to pay off educatee loans on low teacher salaries discourages many students from considering education equally a profession.

"It'south hugely important," Bissell said. "When you look at the dynamics of the teacher pipeline, the biggest deterrent to entering teaching actually hasn't been the condition of the profession. It's been student debt."

Specifically, if teachers teach a field of study where the federal government has designated a shortage area, they can authorize for forgiveness of up to $17,500 in loans received through the Federal Family unit Education Loan program. They might besides qualify for counterfoil of up to 100 percent of a Federal Perkins loan if they teach for five years in a school serving low-income students, or any subject in which a shortage has been alleged.

Would-be teachers who agree to work for four years in a shortage surface area in school that serves low-income students may qualify for grants from the federal TEACH plan, which pays upwardly to $4,000 a yr for iv years, or a total of $xvi,000.

Finding a school in California that meets the low-income requirements is not hard. A federal list of eligible schools includes over viii,000 schools in California — almost iv out of 5 schools in the country. If a educatee ends up non educational activity in one of these schools or non instruction a subject field with a shortage, the TEACH grant is converted into a loan which the recipient is required to pay back.

Last twelvemonth, some 400 CSU students received the TEACH grant. As a upshot of more subjects being designated a shortage expanse, the California State University system, which trains nearly half of all teachers in the state, hopes to double the number of prospective teachers who receive a TEACH grant, Bissell said.

The land faces a huge challenge in addressing the shrinking numbers of would-be teachers in the preparation pipeline. Since 2001-02, enrollments in teacher grooming programs have steadily dipped, to eighteen,894 in 2013-14 (although preliminary figures have shown an uptick in some programs this fall).

In a memo to the Land Board of Education at its last meeting in Sacramento in Nov, the California Department of Didactics advised that "in California shortage areas are especially worrisome with the enrollments of instructor training programs dropping precipitously over the past few years, coupled with an expected increase in the number of retirements."

An EdSource survey this fall of registered voters in California, conducted past The Field Poll in collaboration with the Learning Policy Institute, showed tremendous public support for the land doing more of what the federal government is doing. Fifty-viii percentage of voters "strongly favored" the state forgiving a portion of higher loans to prospective teachers, or offer them scholarships like the federal TEACH grant if they agreed to teach for at to the lowest degree iv years in depression-income communities or in subjects where at that place is a shortage.

California had programs like this over a decade ago, including the Assumption Program of Loans for Didactics, or APLE, and the Governor'southward Teaching Fellowships. But these have been phased out over the years due to upkeep cuts. A nib (SB 62) past Senator Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, that would accept restored the APLE loan forgiveness program, did non receive back up this twelvemonth and Pavley will endeavor again during the coming year to gain legislative approval.

I teacher who has benefited from the federal TEACH program is Sean Brooks, a twoscore-twelvemonth-old single parent who went back to schoolhouse six years ago to get a didactics credential. He said he has received ii TEACH grants totaling $3,000, which has allowed him to pay down his pupil loans.

This twelvemonth Brooks taught physics at John H. Pitman High Schoolhouse in Turlock, subsequently pedagogy for a year at a inferior loftier schoolhouse in Modesto.

He said he was not aware of the federal teacher grant program until he won a $10,000 federal Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship, which paid him $ii,500 for iv semesters to complete a teacher credential program at California Land University, Stanislaus. The Noyce Fellowships are intended to encourage the education of Stalk  (Science, Technology, Engineering science and Math) curricula. Brooks also qualified for $21,000 in loan forgiveness nether the APLE program — before the Legislature phased information technology out for new applicants.

Brooks, who had previously earned a degree in physics, said he owes thousands of dollars in student loans, but has no regrets. He said he went back to school subsequently observing teenagers in the Central Valley without any direction and he felt that he could make his greatest contribution to their lives as a teacher.

"There is a reason I took all of this on," he said.

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